Defending your opponent to death....

[Arrian]

No, not using defensive units to get leaders... using good defenders on good terrain to force the AI stack out in the open ground where your limited no. of attackers can waste them at will, getting promoted in the process. Having catapults makes this even easier, as you will often knock of a hit point. If the AI puts together a good stack, you can whittle away at it and still be secure behind your line of defenders, despite being nearly fully engaged on another front.

-Arrian

[King of Rasslin]

Ok, I see now. I would make the mistake of totally surronding them and losing a lot of units in the process. I think "leading" them into open land would work better, but...

The defensive strat is mainly for people that are at war in 2 fronts. I doubt you have any offensive units available to "whittle away" at the stack. Although it work work very well if you planned it from the start, this isn't really a strat you plan on doing.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

So I tried this theory out 3 times.
The first time, I did it too early and I ended up falling behind tech and city wise. It seems you need to wait until after you have finished expanding.
The second time it worked out perfectly. The AI kept hammering at the 2 fortresses guarding the chocke point.
The third time it worked for a short amount of time, but then the AI got smart, built boats and went around it.

I felt that in general, it helped. But as a couple of posters said, the amount of resources/time you spend building fortresses might have better been spent attacking the enemy. Of course, if you are short in troops, you may consider putting what little resources you have, into these defensive shields.
i just prefer rolling in with Knights and terrorizing everyone

[King of Rasslin]

The nice thing about samurai is that they can "roll in" like knights and defend like musketmen. Their movement combined with defence makes them like the mech infantry of the middle ages. I bet defending the enemy to death would work with others civs than France. They make probably 3x more musketeers than other civs make musketmen. They didn't have many culture buildings, though. In that way, the samurai succeeded in making them waste production, but...

It also slowed me down. I only had 1 luxury where I started, and my luxury meter was at 20% before I finally stopped the war. Although I could have won if I sent in enough samurai, the war was allowing the 6 other civs to jump ahead of me. War is really against production, especially if you are only gaining territory. All I gained from finally defeating France was some incense. Now I have 2 luxuries

[Cookie Monster]

I've been thinking about this one for a while now and here's what I think.

What Velociryx has outlined in his strategy above is classic defense in depth. He tries to draw the fire of the main AI assault into a controlled region and then use his offense to grind down the AI's current offensive power.

What I have observed in most of my games is if one doesn't eliminate the giant stack of AI attackers then you will lose any cities you capture from the AI unless you have massive defenders installed in captured city. By grinding down the AI in a protracted brute force defense you eliminate his potential to launch counteroffensives to your own attacks. Sure the AI may be able to quickly replace his loses if you don't take any of his cities but it will take time to assemble his forces into another monster stack. If you play your cards right and have a reserve force available you can pounce on AI cities thereby diluting his replacements.

All of this takes carefull planning, but is that not what happens in real life?

[Cookie Monster]

Sorry forgot to mention that all of this talk reminds me of the colossal struggle between Germany and the USSR in WW2. The Russians gradually learned to use there manpower to create the offensive defense that Vel talks about. What you can do in Civ3 is elicit the help of other AI's in your war against the current adversary.

[Travathian]

I've used this strategy more than a few times, but primarily it has been in the Industrial or Modern ages. By then the AI usually has massive numbers of troops, varying from ancient era bowman to infantry.

By now the AI will have railroaded most of its usable squares, but not squares in its territory but outside of city squares. So all I do is look for a mountain range square in it's territory without an adjacent railroad, with more mountains adjacent so I know I have at least a 1 turn barrier. Then my transports plop down 16 infantry or mech infatry. On the computer's turn they tell me to leave, give them the finger and declare war, computer moves al of its troops onto the mountain next to me, on my turn I fortify for the extra %50 bonus and if I brought workers, build a fortress (either bring enough to do it in one turn or dont bother). Then I hit end turn and go watch tv for a while. If said mountain range is particularly long and winds thru the AI's territory, consider bringing a few artilery to just blow up roads and improvements, while moving the stack along the mountain range.
My best game so far I mowed down 200+ units in this fashion, granted half of them were inferior units, but those are one less thing I gotta kill to take a new city. Plus, this puts the AI into a 'war' mode, where it'll switch production to military units to throw at my virtually indestructable defenders. After the second wave I usually get all the other AI's to declare war on my target to attack, while I sit back on my home continent continuing to build infrastructure and gain tech. Even in a Democracy, with decent luxaries and infrastructure, I can last the 20 turns for the war pacts to end and then sue for peace, without going into nationwide riots, plus I am usually a few techs ahead by now.

[Tim_Hobbit]

Related question: Bringing along the workers to build that fortress is nice at the begining, but there have been times that I didn't want to leave that fort behind undefended, but didn't have the forces to leave a defense.

How do you remove fortresses?? I have checked the manual, the civilpedia and the forums, don't find a way to remove them!

Tim

[Cookie Monster]

Originally posted by Tim_Hobbit
Related question: Bringing along the workers to build that fortress is nice at the begining, but there have been times that I didn't want to leave that fort behind undefended, but didn't have the forces to leave a defense.

How do you remove fortresses?? I have checked the manual, the civilpedia and the forums, don't find a way to remove them!

Tim

I'm pretty sure that pillaging a tile that contains a fortress will remove it. If there are other improvements in the tile in addition to the fort however, you must pillage them first.

I've had the computer pillage my fortresses so I know that it is possible.

Give it a try. Good luck.

[Tim_Hobbit]

Thanks! Will have to be more persistant, I probably only did it once or maybe twice with a railroad on square and nothing happend to the fortress.

[ShredZ]

Does anyone find that the AI simple move around your fortifications? I build one on the road toawrds my empire, but they just move around it and march straight towards me preparing to pillage everything on their way... =\

[Arrian]

That's why this requires a chokepoint in order to work. The AI will definitely go around a fortified area if it can get there by land. It will sometimes use ships to go around a narrow fortified area, but less often.

Basically, use that to your advantage. If you build forts on the highground, the AI will be forced to march in the open land. And that's where you can kill them. Ask Theseus about "kill zones" sometime.

-Arrian

[FrantzX]

You know, I fear the day Soren teaches the AI to use artillery like we can.

[Harovan]

Yea, that will be awesome, to lose all improvements I built in 1000 years in just one turn. Btw: This day is close, although not with the AI: In PTW, in MP .

[Theseus]

I've been meaning to post about my Egyptian epic, but I keep getting distracted (as in, another turn another turn).

I thought people would enjoy this though...

Be afraid, be very afraid.

(But no arty, thank god... or that's what I thought until the Bombers showed up)